Crawler starts out much like its name, with dancer Jessie Thompson moving almost imperceptibly in a corner of the stage, lit only by lamps on the underside of three small tables. As she migrates into the centre, she begins to form stiff shards with her fingers, or holds suspended beats, responding to industrial creaks and staccato hits created by musician Jason McNamara, who plays live drums and electronics throughout. Sometimes she surprises us with a fluid twist or quick backbend; as McNamara’s drumming segues into freeform jazz, Thompson’s movement transforms. She scratches, twitches and trembles; the cymbal shimmers rattle down her arms and across her sternum. 

Thompson is trained in both street and contemporary styles and recently won Ireland’s leg of the Red Bull Dance Your Style competition; she’ll be the first Irish street dancer to compete in the global finals this November. The vocabulary which hip hop has given her is visible in her precision isolations; but she uses her body in such creative, unexpected ways that she really seems to invent her own distinctive dance language.  

We see her channelling hardcore raving, sinking into feral ecstasy, pushing her body until she has squeezed every ounce of herself out in front of us. In the final section, she keeps encouraging McNamara to give her more and more drums, until it begins to feel almost shamanic; the body sacrificed in search of something higher. This is an extraordinary exploration of a body’s response to sound, both poetic and percussive, and Thompson is dazzlingly compelling. 

Jessie Thompson: Crawler, Assembly @ Dance Base, until 11 August, 2.40pm.